Talking with Ghosts
by piper maru duchovny
Summary: For tonight, for the sake of her sanity, he's just living his days out in Hawaii and he's waiting for her to join him someday. - Marsan, post On the Beach.


**I'm going to say, this is a lot darker than I usually prefer to go but I think it's good and still in character, I hope. Written hastily so if there are any blatant mistakes I apologize. Shoutout to my favorite should-have-been duo for still being as comfortable to write as they were to craft worlds around when I was a child. **

**Disclaimer: Not mine. Not yours. Definitely the ghost of Michael Crichton's. **

* * *

_she's been locked up inside her apartment,  
a hundred days,  
she says, yeah, he's still comin' just a little bit late,  
he got stuck at the laundromat, washing his cape,  
she's just watching the clouds roll by and they spell her name,  
like Lois Lane,  
And she smiles, oh, the way she smiles,  
she's talking to angels, counting the stars,  
making a wish on a passing car,  
she's dancing with strangers, falling apart,  
waiting for superman to pick her up in his arms  
-Daughtry's 'Waiting for Superman'_

* * *

She takes home the guy from the bar and she bites at his lip hard enough to draw blood, yanks at his hair until he growls in frustration, and rakes her nails over his perfect skin just to hear him hiss in pain. His name is lost in some alcohol haze but it's not important, she's hellbent on him being long gone before sunrise. People have been treating her like glass all day but, the thing is, she's not on the edge of falling into a fit of tears that she can't come out of – no, she's in so much pain that she's become numb. The stupid idiot went and fucking died and now there's this Adonis in her bed that is doing absolutely nothing for her. Her fingers shake but she she steadies them with a tightened grip on her bed partner.

But then he's touching her and it's soft, a counterpoint to all her roughness and it's not what she wants. She wants bitter and angry, pain she can feel because the ache inside is unattainable. She needs to feel. With a huff, she shoves him away from her. "Get out."

"Susan," he counters.

And it's wrong. His voice doesn't carry the same consonance.

"Get out," she screams as her voice cracks on the words as she flings his clothes out him and points toward the door. He needs to leave, disappear, because she doesn't need an audience for what is about to happen.

He stumbles from the room with his jeans around his thighs, shirt hooked over his arm, and shoes in hand. She waits for the second click indicating that he'd left her apartment before she grabs the lamp off the bedside table and chucks it across the room, relishing in the way it shatters and leaves a dent in the drywall. Cloaked in darkness, a strangled sob escapes her lungs as her body caves in on itself and she hastily shoves all the pillows and blankets from the bed. Nothing resides between her and the pain but her bare body and the tears finally come with a rush of emotions.

Her best friend, the love of her life, went and died and she was left, alone again. She grabs the headboard and shakes it as hard as she can as the grief rolls over her in waves because the pain is unbearable. Like someone ripped her heart in half. If she wasn't a doctor, if she didn't logically know better, she would swear that she was dying.

Life before him had been nothing remarkable. She'd never had a real friend before him – there had been girls to get drinks with and her sister, her crazy family, but for the most part she had always shouldered the burdens alone. Mark had come along and eased her load. He'd made her life less hollow. They never had epic adventures – maybe they would have if they'd had the guts for Maui – but they had plenty of excitement. Together they had saved more lives than she could count. And he had a way of sneaking into the hospital kitchens at three in the morning to make spicy eggs and coffee seem like an adventure worthy of Indiana Jones.

She had loved him, more than words could ever say. They were victims of fate's timing but she loved him, more than she had ever loved anyone before and she couldn't imagine loving anyone after him. And he loved her just as much. She knew he did. She refused to belittle or demean his relationships with Jen and finally Elizabeth but she knew that things he had shared with his wives had been different than what they'd had together. And maybe if he hadn't gotten sick again, maybe if she hadn't ever left in the first place, they could have had one of those loves – the kind she's dreamed about since she was a child and stole her mother's harlequins. Sure, Mark was never going to be the broody stud (Doug had that sufficiently covered) but, gods above, she'd gladly take him over a thousand dashing rapscallions at her beck and call any day.

Fuck. She misses him.

Paying no mind to the tears that refuse to stop falling, she ignores the broken lamp and crawls across the darkened room to the bottom drawer of her dresser to pull out the Bears jersey. It had long ago belonged to him and she'd stolen it on one of their post Jen tequila nights when Rachel had been in Milwaukee. Back when she thought she could adopt her sister's baby, marry her best friend, and save the world. She pulls it on and relishes in the way it wrapped her up, not quite as good as one of his hugs but it was the best she would ever get to have again. Tucked in the corner of the drawer was their photo booth pictures alongside one of them with the girls when they had gone ice skating. She smirks at young Rachel and her angry face, so confused by the way her world was changing, and Susie just a few seconds shy of spitting up. Her breath hitches when she saw the way he was looking at her, even then. And the way she looked at him. Like they were the only people in the whole world. "I'm sorry," she pleaded to the picture. "I'm sorry I was scared. Dammit, Mark. How could you leave me?"

Clutching the pictures to her chest, she climbs back into the bed and pulls the blankets up over her. She longs for his weight on her, like after his gamma knife treatment when his head had fallen heavy on her lap and she'd held him until the sun was high in the sky. Maybe Elizabeth would let her have that stupid orange blanket. It wasn't anything important to the Brit, she remembered the thing from his brief bachelor days. So maybe Corday would grant her dead husband's best friend this one request.

She sniffles and tucks the pictures into the edge of her bed frame so they would be right at her eye level when she was laying in bed. "There was enough lime in my margarita," she confesses to the ghost. "And I really wanted you to come to Maui with me and I didn't want to have separate rooms. Every day leading up to the day I left for Phoenix I wanted you to ask me to stay. And when you showed up at the train station, I wished for the guts to get off the train and I'm sorry I wasn't brave enough. I missed you so much and I hated that stupid desert but I was so stubborn and so convinced I was doing the right thing. And I'm sorry. I wish I would have kissed you that night I stayed with you after you got sick. Yeah. I know you told me that playing 'might-have-been' wasn't a thing we should do but you went and died on me so it's not like you can yell at me now. Bastard."

"I love you, Mark Greene," she promised and pressed her fingers to her lips then to the pictures. "For tonight, you're in Hawaii living a happy life and you're waiting for me and I'll join you when it's time, alright? I'll see you again someday. That's the only way I'll live through this. I don't know if there's a heaven or hell so... for tonight, you're alive and out there waiting for me." She sighed heavily. "I love you, Mark. Goodnight."


End file.
